Causes 1. Dynastic - a fight for titles 2. Economic and financial - a crisis in the nobility 3. Defeat in the 100 Years War 4. Long term - a shift in the balance of power causing lawlessness and disorder 5. Short term - the personal failings of Henry VI
(1-3 are largely dismissed by Historians in the twentieth century but may still have a part to play)
|Long Term |Short Term |Immediate |
|Rooted in the development and |Based on recent events |A Trigger for Civil War |
|structure of English society | | |
|Made events possible |Made events likely |Made events unavoidable |
|Due to Impact of Bastard |Due to economic and financial |Due to clash of personalities |
|Feudalism |pressures on English landholders | |
|Derived from changes in the |Derived from the Hundred years |Characters - Henry VI, |
|balance of power between the |war |Queen Margaret of Anjou |
|king and his lords | |And principal subjects. |
Long Term Causes of the First Wars
(Socio-political Causes)
Bastard Feudalism and dynastic legitimacy have been seen as the fundamental cause(s) - the government of England being paralysed by the overgrown power of the insubordinate nobility or